1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sewing apparatus which is adapted for alternatingly repeating machine sewing and intermittent fabric workpiece feed such as to continuously sew buttons or form stitches for buttonholes on a plurality of fabric workpieces having different sizes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Examples of sewing apparatus of the kind mentioned above are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,899,919, 2,906,217 and 4,131,074. Each of these known apparatus is provided with a fabric workpiece clamping member which selectively retaines and releases the fabric workpiece on a work table. The fabric workpiece clamping member intermittently moves on the work table such as to intermittently feed the fabric workpiece, thereby bringing sewing portions successively to the position where the sewing needle operates.
In these known sewing apparatus, the length of the work table and the allowable stroke of the fabric workpiece clamping member are set optimumly for the length of, for example, shirts which are processed most commonly. In order that stitches are continuously formed on long fabric workpieces such as long dresses, white robes, negligees and so forth, it is necessary that the length of the work table and the allowable stroke of the fabric workpiece clamping member be increased correspondingly, resulting in an increase of the size of apparatus as a whole.